The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) V5.1

CICES is a hierarchical framework designed to help measure, account for, and assess final ecosystem services (services). The framework is designed to provide a common naming and classification system of services to support ecosystem accounting frameworks.

CICES uses a hierarchy to classify services that arise from biotic (e.g. living) and abiotic (e.g. non-living) structures and processes within ecosystems. It identifies both the purposes or uses that people have for the different kinds of ecosystem service and the particular ecosystem attributes or behaviours that support them. The framework defines services as ‘the contributions that ecosystems make to human well-being’[1][2]. The definition of each service is made up of two parts: a clause describing the biophysical output (i.e. the ‘ecological clause’ noting what the ecosystem does) and a clause describing the contribution it makes to an eventual use or benefit (‘use clause’).

CICES can be easily cross-referenced between different ecosystem service classification systems, such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) 2005, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting—Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA).

The CICES hierarchy has five-levels:

• Section (e.g. Provisioning)

• Division (e.g. Biomass)

• Group (e.g. Cultivated terrestrial plants for nutrition, materials or energy)

• Class (e.g. Cultivated terrestrial plants (including fungi, algae) grown for nutritional purposes)

• Class type (e.g. Cereals, The ecological contribution to the growth of cultivated, land-based crops that can be harvested and used as raw material for the production of food).

Each level is progressively more detailed and specific. Each level of the hierarchy is dependent on one another in that the characteristics used to define services at the lower levels are inherited from the Sections, Divisions and Groups above them. It is important to note that at any level in the hierarchy, the categories are intended to be exclusive so that CICES can be regarded as a classification system.

Each service classification is assigned a unique four-digit code. Biotic provisioning, regulation and maintenance, and cultural services are labelled at the Section level as 1, 2, and 3 respectively, while the abiotic outputs are labelled 4, 5, 6 at the Section level. Services can then be coded under each section at the Division, Group, and Class levels. For example, under the “Provisioning Biotic” Section, the class type “Cultivated terrestrial plants (including fungi, algae) grown for nutritional purposes” is labelled as 1.1.1.1. Under the “Provisioning Abiotic” Section, the class type “Mineral substances used for material purposes” is labelled 4.3.1.2.

Although CICES at the Class level is intended to be exhaustive, each of the Section levels enable users to develop services not yet included in CICES. In the coding system, where CICES codes are unavailable for a service, the nearest CICES code for “other” is used (for example, 2.3.X.X) and a new code number is substituted for ‘x’.

CICES groups criteria under the five levels of the hierarchy:

Section (e.g. provisioning, regulation & maintenance, cultural)

Division (e.g. biomass, regulation of physical, chemical, biological conditions, direct, in-situ and outdoor interactions with natural physical systems that depend on presence in the environmental setting)

Group (e.g. cultivated aquatic plants for nutrition, materials or energy, regulation of baseline flows and extreme events, spiritual, symbolic and other interactions with the abiotic components of the natural environment)

Class (e.g. fibres and other materials from cultivated plants, fungi, algae and bacteria for direct use or processing  (excluding genetic materials), bio-remediation by micro-organisms, algae, plants, and animals, characteristics of living systems that enable education and training)

*For conciseness, the ‘Criteria by Category’ section presented later in this entry only lists Section and Group categories. For detailed information, please see the CICES spreadsheet.

• Data and understanding about ecosystem components and processes
• Data about activities occurring within the environment and broader catchment/landscape
• Information about the material and non-material uses people have for ecosystem outputs

• In-depth knowledge of the ecosystem components, processes, and activities within the environment and broader catchment/landscape and how they generate services
• Expe knowledge of people’s interaction with nature
• Record keeping expertise (e.g. Excel or other data recording software)

• CICES Spreadsheet (downloaded from the CICES website https://cices.eu/resources/ for filtering services
• Microsoft Office or similar product that can read/edit Excel spreadsheets (e.g. Google Sheets)
• Computing resources

• Filtered spreadsheet identifying the services performed by an ecosystem
• Filtered spreadsheet that links the purposes or uses that people have for different ecosystem services with ecosystem attributes or behaviours
• A common naming and classification system of services to support ecosystem accounting frameworks

• Recommendations for management of ecosystems to maintain or improve the services they provide
• A common naming and classification system of services for supporting ecosystem accounting frameworks
• Support for decision-making and policy development

Natural resource managers, government agencies, local government, researchers, education, science communicators

• Comprehensive list of services that can be applied across a diverse set of ecosystems
• Based on existing classification frameworks (e.g. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, TEEB, and SEEA)
• Adaptive
• Can be used to support ecosystem accounting frameworks (e.g. SEEA)
• Can be used alongside spatial mapping and modelling ecosystem services

• Large spreadsheet to filter, can be difficult to manoeuvre
• Communication of the concept of ecosystem services described by CICES can be complex and may require extra effort to explain services for non-experts

A blueprint for mapping and modelling ecosystem services

Accounting for capacity and flow of ecosystem services: A conceptual model and a case study for Telemark, Norway

CICES going local: Ecosystem services classification adapted for a highly populated country

Classification of boreal forest ecosystem goods and services in Finland. Publications of the University of Eastern Finland

Ecosystem service trade-offs from supply to social demand: A landscape-scale spatial analysis

From explanation to application: introducing a practice-oriented ecosystem services evaluation (PRESET) model adapted to the context of landscape planning and management

Linking ecosystem services with landscape history

Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services. Indicators for ecosystem assessments under Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020

Potentials of quantitative and qualitative approaches to assessing ecosystem services

Value of ecosystem services? Examples and experiences on forests, peatlands, agricultural lands, and freshwaters in Finland

What services do wetlands provide?

Where concepts meet the real world: A systematic review of ecosystem service indicators and their classification using CICES

This page should be cited as:

Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, Queensland (2022) The Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) V5.1, WetlandInfo website, accessed 30 August 2024. Available at: https://wetlandinfo.des.qld.gov.au/wetlands/resources/tools/assessment-search-tool/the-common-international-classification-of-ecosystem-services-cices-v5-1/